


Goodbye

by AugustStories



Series: Season 15 Oneshots [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Sam Winchester, Pain, Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Rowena MacLeod & Sam Winchester Friendship, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 01:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21171398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: Don't read if you haven't seen the episode but the tags should already make that obvious.--"What do you say?""You say thank you. And you say you're sorry. You hope they're somewhere without sadness or pain. You hope they're somewhere better. You say goodbye."





	Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> This episode was rough.
> 
> And as I am fearing that we will not see the boys dealing with grief because in two weeks we're gonna have jumped ahead six months to have them be in our fall now, I just needed to write this.
> 
> Jared and Ruth were so incredible in the episode, took my breath away as much as it made me cry.

After Dean left, Sam was left to his own divices again and he laid down on his bed instead of just sitting there, curled up on the covers because what difference did some warmth make now. Certainly none to him. He couldn't feel his body, every limb, every inch of skin was just numb.

And how could he feel the cold air on his skin when his heart was burning so.

For such a long time he had fooled himself into believing that he had changed destiny once, he could do it all over again. He had changed a prophecy once that no one had seen movable, he had been so sure that he could get there again, that once more he could divert what the world saw as unavoidable.

He had truly believed deep inside his heart that he wouldn't end up being _her_ ending.

He hadn't wanted it, he had fought with everything inside of himself to not become her killer. He had ignored it every single day, that sword dangling over his head again. He had ignored the causality that if bad things could happen to them they did.

He had fooled himself like a little boy who still wanted to believe in miracles.

Sam closed his eyes and let the tears run free again, biting his lips to keep any sound from escaping because the last thing he wanted now was for his brother to come back. He needed to be alone. He just wanted to be alone right now.

He had cried himself hollow already when he had packed up _her_ things in the crypt, carefully, mindful of treating them right, like he could just turn around at any moment and _she_ would be standing there to cuss him out about treating _her_ books too harshly. Like he could have turned around at any point and _she_ would have still been there. Like he could finish this up and walk outside and _she_ would be standing there, asking him why he couldn't hurry up a little and tell him he was gonna carry _her_ bags to the car now for being so slow.

He had knelt on the cold hard ground of the crypt and cried into the soft fabric of _her_ jacket that was surely way too expensive to be cried into. He had knelt and cried until he had run out for the time being, he had grabbed _her_ jacket and _her_ bags and rejoined with his brother and Cas outside. They had walked to Baby and driven back to the bunker in absolute silence, not a word spoken, not a look shared. Sam had refused to let Dean pack _her _things into the trunk or the backseat row, instead Sam had kept them squished under his legs, fingers twisted into the soft jacket.

Back at the bunker, back in a home that hadn't felt like home in a while now, Sam had carefully and gently set _her_ bags and _her_ jacket down in his room and then gone to take a shower, something he had barely felt on his skin. On bare feet he had walked back to his room, along cold tiles and hard ground and he hadn't felt any of it.

And to make everything worse, so much worse, this was the first time he had time to let it hit him, to really let it hit him and drown him under. There were no distractions, nothing world-endangering that needed their focus more. Nothing that said, hurt later, fight now.

Not like it had been with Jack.

Not like it had been with Mum.

Not like it had been with Maggie and the other hunters he had been supposed to protect.

Not like it had been with Gabriel.

Not like it had been with Eileen...

And he didn't even want to keep listing all the other names on the long long list of people he had lost. People he had failed.

Just why did it hurt so much still...

Why did it hurt so much after everything he had already lost? Why did he time and time again just start caring so much for people? Why had he never learned?

Pinching his eyes tighter together, Sam brought a fist up against his chest and pressed it against his screaming heart, it was pounding in the strain it took for him to supress his sobbing, like it wanted to escape a body that only brought hurt to it. His free hand twisted itself into the covers, twisted it so hard that his knuckles turned white and hot with pain.

The hand that had held the knife.

The hand that had fulfilled the prophecy.

He had gotten so many people killed but it had been a long time since he had held the weapon himself.

He bit down on his lips when he felt again how the knife had plunged into _her_, how _she_ had twitched for that one split moment in his arms before _she_ had been so calm again. _She_ had always been so much stronger than him, in any way, so much stronger and so much better. Everyone had, everyone who had died because of him, for him, everyone had deserved more time.

Even Gabriel who had been older than time itself.

Sam wasn't good enough for any of them to have lost their lives for. When the pressure in his chest became too much, he turned his face into the pillow and hoped it muffled the sounds enough as the sobs racked through his body. It hurt, it hurt so much.

\--

He cried himself to sleep.

Dean must have come in at some point afterwards because when Sam woke up in the middle of the night he found himself covered by a blanket and crackers and a bottle of water on his nightstand.

Disorientated from not remembering having gone to sleep and by the lack of nightmares, Sam struggled himself out of his blanket cocoon and dragged hands down his face. His throat was hurting, his chest felt hollow, his shoulder was pinching and his body was so weary.

Ignoring the water and the crackers, he got out of bed, with his stomach heavy as it was everything would only make him nauseas now. He retrieved the knife from one of _her_ bags and then stepped into the quiet corridor, Dean's room was dark, so was Cas' and he took care to not make any noise as he crept out of the corridor – Sam wouldn't learn until the morning what had happened between Dean and Cas and that at the point of his wandering, Cas had been long gone and Dean had drunken himself into a stupor in the garage.

Sam's path led him down to the basement, into a backroom that he was quite sure Dean hadn't even found still. He didn't know what this had once been, what the Men of Letters had needed such an intricate basement level for, he probably didn't even want to hear the answer to it. He closed the door and turned towards the one shelf in the back corner, next to a lonely armchair it was the only thing in the entire room. The shelf contained one locked metal box and Sam took that box and settled himself on the chair with a heavy breath falling from his lips.

He turned the numerical code into the lock and then slowly opened the box, revealing the content to his own tired eyes. Revealed weapons to his tired eyes. Eileen's gun and knife, the two things she had told Sam had real meaning to her, weapons that had been more than just a tool to her. Maggie's favourite knife. Gabriel's blade, the oldest kind weapon in history that was as useless as a butter knife now, if Michael came topside, this blade in their hands would only give him papercuts.

He set _her_ knife into the box and then closed and locked it again, returning it to the shelf before sitting down once more.

He stared at the wall and tried to figure out what he was feeling, tried to figure out if he was feeling anything anymore.

_Her_ sacrifice meant that the spirits and ghosts were back in Hell, that Hell was closed again, that catasstrophe had been avoided. He was sure that demons could still come topside but also wondered if they would for a while, with Hell in shambles as Heaven had once been, maybe their infighting to get order back in would mean Earth was left alone for a while.

There was Michael to consider but days had passed now since Chuck had broken open the Cage right along with every door in and into Hell, maybe he truly was as broken as Lucifer had claimed and he didn't even realize that he was free.

Heaven was closed, no threat was coming from there as long as they still struggled to keep the lights on.

God was gone.

What was there left for them now?

He had told his brother that they were free now, free to live their lives, free to make their own story but where was it supposed to lead? Sam had never thought about the future, he had given up those dreams a long long time ago, he had long since accepted that there was no way out for him.

And what would it have been all for anyway?

Find a way out and then what? Be alone? After all their friends had been taken from them again and again.

Their family.

After they very much knew there was no path into Heaven for them anymore? That had been made quite clear to them.

What was the sense in caring or seeing a future worth having hope for when you knew that at the end nothing waited for you. Actually Nothing. When he would never see his friends and family in Heaven.

He hoped fervently and desperately that _she_ had been granted a place there, that all the good things _she_ had done and all the goods amazing things _she_ had been made of would weigh out the bad parts in _her_ past and give _her_ a way into Heaven somehow. He didn't want to think that _she_ could be stuck in Hell for all of eternity.

Kevin's reveal had already destroyed so many of the little comforts he had given himself over the years. He got those people killed but at least they were in Heaven now and not suffering any longer. How many times had he told himself that little lie? How many times had he believed it and stiffled his tears with it?

And how had his heart shattered when Kevin had told them the truth.

How many more people did that account for?

How many people did they know truly made it to Heaven?

What about those he had never questioned it for?

What about Charlie, Maggie... Eileen?

He knew where Crowley, Gabriel and Jack had ended up, there was no questioning there, angels, demons, nephilim had one end and one end only but at least there seemed to be no more suffering for them there. Only eternal sleep, eternal nothingness. And God had no reach there, the one place he couldn't touch and corrupt with his black touch, so maybe Sam should rejoice in knowing that death would mean the absolute freedom from Chuck.

\--

When his eyes threatened to fall shut too often, he heaved himself back to his feet and made his way back to his room, the clicked the door shut, took his shirt off and threw it in a corner before climbing back in bed and under the covers. He laid on his side for a while, staring at her bags and her jacket and feeling like a little kid, a little insignificant boy whose life had only been a blink in _hers_.

**'I believe in prophecy. I believe in magic. And I'm here, and you're here.'**

Tears jumped back into his eyes.

**'I know we've grown quite fond of another but will you let the world die? Your brother die? Just so I can live?'**

He buried his face in his hands and was too weak to even try and hold back the sobs again.

**'That's my boy.'**

Blindly he pushed himself off the bed again and stumbled over to the table where he had dropped _her_ things, desperate shaking hands pushed the bags to the side and he couldn't even see behind the waterfall of tears running down his face. When he finally held the jacket in one hand, he collapsed back onto the bed and buried his face into it, and then the walls and the locks broke inside his mind and his heart.

Sam screamed and howled.

He let the pain rip and claw at scars on his heart that would never heal again until what remained of _her_ perfume in the fabric lulled him to sleep.

\--

Hours and hours later he woke to a still quiet bunker, more tired than ever but his shoulder was hurting so much that he couldn't lay down anymore. Mechanically he took a shower and got dressed in fresh clothes, didn't question why he didn't find Dean or Cas anywhere in their usual spots before he went outside.

_Her_ jacket held in one hand like a comfort blanket.

His other hand held one of _her_ emptied out spell bags and an axe.

After Michael had massacred the hunters in the bunker they had took much efforts to drive at least two towns over before hacking down wood for too many pyres. That pillar of smoke would have alarmed the entirety of Lebanon too much. They hadn't been able yet to give Jack a goodbye, it was something to think about later with Dean and Cas but right now Sam needed to do this one thing alone.

He chopped down a tree somewhere in the no-man's land behind the bunker and took it apart into pieces until he could shift them into a pyre. A small one, he didn't have much left. When he was done, he set the bag on top of it, used some lighter fluid to drench it and then set it ablaze.

Sam retreated some steps and brought _her_ jacket up to his chest, held onto it as his mind thought back to a conversation he had had with Jack.

And as the sun rose higher above him and showered him with warm rays that he didn't even feel anymore, Sam stared at the smoke drifting up into the sky.

**"Goodbye, Rowena."**


End file.
